Boston Fans Help Cover Live Events With Their Smartphones

Boston, Mass. — NESN, New
England's highly rated sports network, tried an experiment this week
involving its coverage of the Boston red Sox Major League Baseball
team: encouraging fans to shoot video with their smartphones—perhaps
capturing a unique angle of a disputed play—and then incorporating
that video into the main live game coverage. Going forward, NESN will
also spotlight fan videos during Red Sox post-game shows, NESN Sports
Today and the next day's pre-game show. Call it citizen sports
journalism, as NESN said it would have access to potentially a
million camera sources per night (that's how many people watch at
least part a typical regular season game).

Boston fans
are being encouraged to send in cellphone video shot at the game that
might be incorporated into live telecasts and other shows.

NESN said it plans to integrate a
wide range of replay angles by fans shooting game action from their
seats at Fenway Park or on Red Sox road games. The network will also
showcase videos from fans watching Red Sox games in communal settings
at bars and restaurants, at home with their family, on college
campuses and man caves, or even while traveling throughout the
country or the world.

"There's really no limit to
the replay angles, reactions and creative ideas fans can shoot and
submit," said Joseph Maar, NESN's Vice President of Programming
& Production, Executive Producer, in a statement. "The
proliferation of mobile video devices has exploded to the point that
nearly every fan watching a game can shoot their experience—be it a
play that happens near them, the reaction of family members and
friends during a key moment, or commenting directly to our
announcers."

Maar said they'll also showcase
fans calling a home run or sending in a historic Red Sox moment they
shot during a prior game.

"With over one million viewers
watching some part of a Red Sox game on any given night, the time is
now to bring our fans' perspectives into our nightly telecasts,"
Maar said.

Fans are encouraged to shoot
horizontally for the best picture. They can submit videos by going to
NESN.com/OnTV or by texting their video with the keyword ONTV to
536536. NESN collaborated on this new feature with Burst, a
Boston-based provider of mobile video streaming technology that helps
users create, manage, publish and monetize mobile video content.
Burst's technology also allows fans to submit mobile video directly
to broadcast TV without an app download.

NESN's has already had success
adopting fan-generated videos. After the Red Sox won the World Series
last October, the network produced a season-ending Red Sox commercial
with 100 percent of the footage shot and submitted by fans. NESN also
included fan-shot footage in the network's year-in-review film "Band
of Bearded Brothers," which featured video from the stands at
Fenway Park during the last moments of Game 6 versus St. Louis. Both
the commercial and the film were recently nominated for New England
Emmy Awards.

NESN's game telecast already many
interactive features, such as real-time results from fan voting via
texting, fan Tweets in the telecast, and fan photos as part of the
AT&T Fan Photo segment.

Celebrating 30 years in 2014, NESN
is delivered to over 4 million homes throughout the six-state New
England region and an additional 5 million homes nationally as NESN
National. NESN.com is the most visited regional sports network
website in the country. NESN also produces a number of distinctive
programs under its umbrella Original NESN Entertainment (ONE). NESN
is owned by Fenway Sports Group (owners of the Boston Red Sox) and
Delaware North (owners of the Boston Bruins).